ContractsProf Blog

Today in history: April 26

On this date in 1607, English employees of the privately held Virginia Company of London (left: the company seal) land at Cape Henry, Virginia, with the intent of founding a gold-mining operation. A month later they will found the first successful settlement of Jamestown.

They don't actually find any gold, but the settlement will endure, making the United States the first nation in history to be founded by a for-profit corporation.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 25

On this date in 1938, the United States Supreme Court shocked just about everyone with the release of Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, a decision that wiped nearly 100 years of federal common law off the books and became a permanent fixture of the U.S. civil procedure casebook.

Why mention it on a blog related to contract law?  Because the lawyer who lost the case (and who saw his law firm go out of business with the loss of the contingent fee) was 24-year-old Aaron L. Danzig, who had graduated from law school only two years earlier.  He's best known in contract law circles as the father of future Stanford Contracts tprof (and, later, my partner at Latham & Watkins partner and Secretary of the Navy) Richard Danzig, author of The Capability Problem in Contract Law.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 24

On this date in 1957, the Suez Canal reopens for business after its extended closure during the Suez Crisis.  Egyptian President Gamal Nasser had responded to an Anglo-French seizure of the canal by sinking all 40 ships in it.  The canal couldn't be reopened until they were cleared, and much shipping was delayed or routed around the Cape of Good Hope.

The case, of course, let to some of the most famous "impracticability" and "frustration of purpose" decisions in modern contract law, including Lord Denning's influential opinion in Ocean Tramp Tankers Corporation v V/O Sovfracht (The Eugenia), [1964] 2 Q.B. 226 (CA), in which the Court of Appeal held that the closure of the canal as a result of military action was not an event that excused performance under the shipping contract.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 23

On this date in 1791, lawyer and politician James Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.  Buchanan went on to become one of the most experienced men ever to hold the office of President of the United States, having served as state legislator, Congressman, Senator, minister to Russia, minister to Great Britain, and Secretary of State -- as well as turning down a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

He was also a very bad prophet who wildly overestimated the power of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide contentious political issues.  In his Inaugural Address he cheerfully noted that the question of slavery was one of "little practical importance" because the U.S. Supreme Court was about to settle it as a matter of Constitutional law.  Two days later, the Court announced Dred Scott v. Sandford.  Two years later, in his 1859 State of the Union message, he was still confident that the Court's decision had finally settled the issue whether slavery could be abolished and eliminated all need for sectional strife:

I cordially congratulate you [the people] upon the final settlement by the Supreme Court of the United States of the question of slavery in the Territories, which had presented an aspect so truly formidable at the commencement of my Administration. The right has been established of every citizen to take his property of any kind, including slaves, into the common Territories belonging equally to all the States of the [Union], and to have it protected there under the Federal Constitution. Neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature nor any human power has any authority to annul or impair this vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, which is a coordinate branch of the Government, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles of constitutional law . . . .

Apparently, though, some people continued to disagree.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 22

On this date in 1864, the United States Congress passes the Coinage Act.  It authorizes the creation of a new 2-cent coin (left), on which Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase decides to put the words "In God We Trust."  That's the first use of that motto on a U.S. coin.

No one at the time can possibly suspect that this will go on to become the motto of the United States, far outlasting the coin that introduced it.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 20

On this date in 1871, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1871 at the urging of President U.S. Grant.  The measure, originally aimed at suppressing the Ku Klux Klan in the South, will eventually come to be codified as one of the most important civil rights laws, as 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 19

On this date in 1782, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands becomes the first nation to recognize the independence of the United States.   This is historically important because it marked the United States' first entry onto the world stage, a process that would culminate two centuries later with atification of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 18

On this date in 1923, Babe Ruth hits a home run and the New York Yankees beat Boston 4-1 in the first game ever played at the new Yankee Stadium.  The team''s owners built the stadium with their own money on land they bought and paid for themselves.  And they paid taxes on the property after they built it.

Yes, times have changed.

[Frank Snyder\

Today in history: April 17

On this date in 1492, one of the most important contracts in history is signed, as Queen Isabella I of Castile and León inks a deal with a Genoese sailor, Christopher Columbus, to sail westward to the Orient in search of spices.

Columbus subsequently sets sail with three ships, but it turns out that both parties are laboring under a mutual mistake of fact.

[Frank Snyder]

Today in history: April 16

On this date in 1905, steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie (left) donated $10 million to create the eponymous Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.  It's not really clear whether it helped.  A hundred and four years later, American law schools are still teaching the same way they were in 1905. 

["Mr. Hart?" he droned, "Can you tell us the facts of Paradine v. Jane?"]

[Frank Snyder]